I know the central mission of the Republican Party is to have a membership made up entirely of old rural white people. But you have to be impressed by the blatant to destroy the party throughout the entire Northeast. Refusing to consider disaster relief funding that directly affects the districts and states of some of your most powerful and well-known politicians like Chris Christie and Peter King, well, that takes the cake. Given that the right kind of Republican can win both locally and statewide in these states, it doesn’t seem real bright. But then that kind of Republican is no Republican at all to Grover Norquist and Eric Cantor and Louie Gohmert and Smokey Joe Barton.

Well, no he’d be the guy angrily denouncing the guilty verdict. A question I’ve always wanted answered: did Peter King have to wait and see who claimed responsibility for the 7/7 attacks before denouncing them?

Given that the right kind of Republican can win both locally and statewide in these states, it doesn’t seem real bright.

Kinda yes, kinda no.

As long as they can maintain a working majority (and the malapportionment of the Senate makes this WAY WAY easier than for the Demcorats) they would prefer that their party be as ideologically pure as possible. This is understandable; a Republican who can only be counted on to vote for Majority Leader and then is going to fight you on a lot of other high-profile things is going to be a lot of trouble. Your base is going to be mad at him, they’re going to take it out on you, they provide bipartisan cover to your political enemies, and…

Well, I mean, look at the Democratic Party. The Blue Dogs are a millstone, and ‘Democrats in disarray’ is a constant theme in the media.

There’s an argument to be made, of course, that this strategy is counterproductive; it gives you no cushion in a bad year and it may have cost the Republicans the Senate in 2010. But the idea of ‘smaller, purer caucus as long as we can still govern’ isn’t presumptively insane, I don’t think. “We don’t want the kind of ‘Republicans’ who are the only kind that could get elected in the northeast; they can either take our message or leave it” is a perfectly cromulent strategy as long as you can still assemble a majority without them.

King wants the government to spend money on something other than plutocrats or war, albeit in a completely self-serving way. I say without snark that this is a break from the Republican party line and makes him suspiciously apostate.

Remember, these guys are reluctant to give aid to disaster relief in the south, otherwise known as ‘the region without which the Republican Party evaporates.’ If they’re leery about blood-red states, that doesn’t make New England exactly unique.

Figures. Every other major politician from NY and NJ, including several people that I rarely agree with about anything (e.g. Peter King), are trashing the House Republicans over this. But not Michael Bloomberg, oh no. He’s “disappointed”, but he won’t criticize the leadership.

I’d be a lot more interested in hearing Rep. King whine about this if he and his buddies hadn’t spent the last four years desperately attempting to prove the GOP mantra “GUBMINT DOESN’T WORK” by their own complete incompetence.

Chris Christie’s presser on this was amazing. He skipped right past Pox On Both Your Houses and directly called out the House majority. At length. And obviously actively angry. And then referred to himself in solidarity with Gov. Cuomo repeatedly.

Between this and standing around smiling with The Black Not-President two weeks before the election, I really am wondering if he thinks he has any chance at all at the GOP nomination in 2016. The fury of southern Republicans at him is going to be incandescent, and he appears to happily return the sentiment.

He may also have just flat out given up on being able to make it through the Republican presidential primaries in 2016, and be using this to shore himself up for his next gubernatorial election (which I suspect may be against Corey Booker and thus quite difficult for him). This is, quite obviously, going to garner him a lot of goodwill at home.